Page | 32 Anglisticum Journal (IJLLIS), Volume: 10 | Issue: 6 | June 2021 E-ISSN: 1857-8187 P-ISSN: 1857-8179 Suspended
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June 2021 e-ISSN: 1857-8187 p-ISSN: 1857-8179 https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5084928 August 2017 e-ISSN: 1857-8187 p-ISSN: 1857-8179 Research Article History THE HUNGARIAN BEER HALL PUTSCH Keywords: radical right-wing organisations, coup d'état, political THE SZEMERE–BOBULA–ULAIN COUP PLAN, 1923 violence, irredentism, anti- Semitism. Balázs Kántás National Archives of Hungary Abstract The years following World War One belonged to a crisis period when political extremities strengthened throughout Europe. In Hungary, it was also the peak of the radical right wing, and some radical political circles even planned coups d’état against the conservative government that was working on the political consolidation of Hungary. A group of radical right-wing politicians led by Member of the Parliament Ferenc Ulain who had been in confidential contact with German radical right-wing movements and politicians (Adolf Hitler and General Erich Ludendorff among them) decided to execute a takeover attempt in 1923, with the help of Bavarian paramilitary movements, harmonizing their plans with the Munich Beer Hall Putsch being in preparation. The present research article makes an attempt to reconstruct this strange chapter of Hungarian political history. Although domestic policy of Hungary was fully determined by British and French interests after the signing of the Peace Treaty of Trianon, secret negotiations with radical right-wing German and Austrian organizations, which went back to 1919, continued for a time in 1921 and 1922 with less intensity than before. The Bethlen Government continued to maintain moderate contacts with German radical right-wing politicians, including former Bavarian Premier and later Commissioner General Gustav von Kahr, General Erich Ludendorff and Adolf Hitler, who was then an emerging and very ambitious young far-right politician in Munich, the centre of the German radical right-wing movements. In the spring of 1922, Prime Minister Bethlen sent the influential politician Miklós Kozma, then the director of the Hungarian Telegraph Office to Munich to negotiate and gather information and to revive Bavarian-Hungarian political relations, which had been declining since the end of 1921.1 Kozma also personally negotiated with General Ludendorff, a leader of the German radical right about a possible Bavarian-Hungarian cooperation initiative, in which the Hungarian Government circles would have bought weapons from Germany, for example. The German general complained to him that his political influence had recently declined considerably within the Weimar Republic, and even within Bavaria, the centre of the radical right, and that there was such a great disunity among Bavarian right-wing politicians that they essentially did not agree with each other on anything.2 Bethlen, informed by Miklós Kozma and Gyula Gömbös, chairman of the Hungarian Defence Force Association (MOVE) and a prominent politician of the Hungarian radical right (who was then still a member of the governing party), concluded that the Hungarian Government could not hope for any useful cooperation with the Bavarians, and negotiations on such cooperation were temporarily 1 Mária Ormos, Egy magyar médiavezér. Kozma Miklós, 110–113. 2 Ormos, op. cit.112. Page | 32 Anglisticum Journal (IJLLIS), Volume: 10 | Issue: 6 | June 2021 e-ISSN: 1857-8187 p-ISSN: 1857-8179 suspended. 3 Behind the negotiations, the name of the then very influential secret military organization, the Double Cross Blood Union was involved, since among others, Colonel Tihamér Siménfalvy, the head of the organisation was one of the influential figures on the Hungarian Government side who had previously encouraged the maintenance of lively relations with the Bavarian and Austrian far-right movements.4 As we have mentioned, from 1922 onwards, Bethlen’s consolidation policy led to a decline in attempts of cooperation between the Hungarian Government and the German-Austrian far-right organizations. At the same time, the nationalist-irredentist organizations, which were increasingly opposed to the Hungarian government, though sometimes united with it in common interests, especially the then still influential Association of Awakening Hungarians which had considerable political influence and a large number of members, and the radical circles of military officers that were also part of its leadership, continued to actively seek international cooperation with organizations on a similar ideological platform. In 1921 the Awakening Hungarians represented the Hungarian radical right in the international anti-Semitic congress in Vienna where the possibility of forming an International Anti-Semitic League was raised.5 The first years of consolidation continued to be characterized by a social and economic situation that was very favourable of political extremism. Several political groupings also played on the idea of attempted coups and violent takeovers. The failed revisionist right-wing alliance, the White Internationale dreamed up by Ludendorff was the predecessor of such an adventurous and essentially frivolous coup plan, which nevertheless attracted great political and press attention, and was put forward by Dr. Béla Szemere, a surgeon and hospital director, the used-to-be commander of the auxiliary police militia known as the National Organisation of State Security Agents (Állambiztonsági Megbízottak Szervezete, shortened as ÁBM) (by then under the control of the National Labour Protection, a right-wing workers’ militia under the supervision of the State Police), Hungarian-born American architect Titusz Bobula, and Dr. Ferenc Ulain, a lawyer and race-defending member of the National Assembly who had left the governing United Party and was the confidant of Gyula Gömbös, the leading politician of the Hungarian far-right movements. Given that the three men planned to overthrow the Bethlen Government, which they believed to be excessively liberal, pro-Entente and pro-Jewish, by force with the armed support of the German National Socialist movement led by Hitler and General Ludendorff, carrying out their plans at roughly the same time as the Beer Hall Putcsh, making their action dependent on its success, their coup plan is perhaps most aptly should be named the plan of the Hungarian Beer Hall Putsch. Ironically, the headquarters of the Association of Awakening Hungarians was located in Sörház Street – the name of which in English roughly means Beer Hall Street. 3 Ormos, op. cit. 113. 4 Nándori, A Marseilles-i gyilkosság nemzetközi jogi vonatkozásai, 24–25. 5 Ungváry, A Horthy-rendszermérlege, 111. Page | 33 Anglisticum Journal (IJLLIS), Volume: 10 | Issue: 6 | June 2021 e-ISSN: 1857-8187 p-ISSN: 1857-8179 The preparations for the strange coup plan must have begun sometime in early August 1923, when a young German man named Friedrich Fritz Döhmel appeared in Budapest, claiming to be a representative of the Hitler-Ludendorff-led Bavarian National Socialist movement and the closely allied paramilitary organisation Kampfbund, and approached several Hungarian far-right organizations and public figures with various seemingly credible German-language letters of recommendation. One of Döhmel’s first trips, whose motives were not entirely clear, was to the headquarters of the Association of Awakening Hungarians, which had previously maintained good relations with the Bavarian nationalists, where he wanted to meet members of the organizations leadership. He got to one of the associations leaders, Lieutenant Colonel PálPrónay, but Prónay did not believe the German young man’s claims. However, Döhmel did not give up, and he finally reached Titusz Bobula, a wealthy Hungarian-born architect who had returned from the United States of America and who held a confused radical right-wing perspective, and his friend, Dr. Béla Szemere, a medical doctor and hospital director, and his circle. Szemere, as the de facto commander of the above mentioned State Security Agents militia, which continued to operate with some intensity, and Bobula who provided financial support to the Hungarian far-right had been thinking for some time about how to remove the Bethlen Government, but their activities were limited to planning. It is not clear fom the available sources exactly when Döhmel contacted them, but it is likely that he was in contact with members of the radical right-wing association of the Hungarian Cultural League led by Szemere as early as August 1923.6 It seems, however, that Döhmel approached Bobula who rented a suite in the Hotel Gellért at the end of October 1923, and Bobula almost immediately he called Szemere to him as well. This may not have been the first time that Szemere and Döhmel met, but in any case it was at this time that the Hungarian parties believed that Döhmel was indeed an agent of the Bavarian nationalist organisation, who was visiting Hungary to make concrete arrangements for cooperation with similar Hungarian far-right formations. Negotiations began in German, and Bobula translated what Döhmel said to Szemere who did not speak German. Döhmel asked how many people Szemere as former commander of the State Security Agents could call to arms in the event of a takeover attempt. Szemere replied that although the State Security Agents had not previously been set up for the purpose of conspiring against the state, there would certainly be some people willing to join the cause. There is also contradictory information about whether the majority of the members of the State Security Agents had previously surrendered